Dissolving Complex Occupational Health and Safety Problems

1
Dissolving Complex Occupational Health and Safety
Problems

• James E. Leemann, Ph.D.
• Environmental and Occupational Health Conference
• Sustaining the Environmental Health Workforce
• August 1 3, 2001
• Renaissance Madison Hotel
• Seattle, Washington

2
Sustaining the Environmental Health Workforce

• Conference Objectives
• New opportunities skills to recruit, train, and
  strengthen the environmental health workforce
• Integration of Research and Practice into
  curricula
• Examination of environmental health competencies

3
Sustaining the Environmental Health Workforce

• Conference Objectives (contd)
• Issues surrounding the need for diversity
• Innovative techniques in curriculum development

4
New Opportunities Skills

• Occupational Health and Safety Management II
  ENHS 724
• Using Systems Thinking to Dissolve Complex
  Occupational Health and Safety Management
  Problems Through
• Interactive Planning

5
Systems Thinking

• A System is a whole that cannot be divided into
  independent parts
• And, therefore, when a System is taken apart it
  losses all of its essential properties and so do
  its parts
• This is why a System cannot be understood by only
  analyzing it.

6
System Analysis and Synthesis

• We are typically predisposed to taking systems
  apart and treating the parts separately. This is
• a consequence of analytic thinking.
• Analysis and thought are
• often treated as synonyms, but analysis is
• only one way of thinking synthesis is another.

7
System Analysis and Synthesis

• Analysis Focuses on structure and how things
  work efficiently and how to repair it when it
  stops working. Its product is Knowledge.
• Synthesis Focuses on function and why things
  operate as effectively as they do. Its product
  is Understanding.

8
Dealing with Complex OHS Problems

• Absolution Ignoring the problem and hoping it
  will go away on its own accord.
• Resolution Doing something that yields an
  outcome that is good enough.
• Solution Doing something that yields or comes
  as close as possible to the best possible
  outcome, something that optimizes.
• Dissolution Doing something to eliminate the
  problem.

9
Dissolving Complex Occupational Health and Safety
Management Problems

• Dissolving problems involves the
• redesign of the entity that has the problem, or
  its environment, in such a way as to eliminate
  the problem and enable the system involved to do
  better in the future than the best it can do
  today, in a word, to idealize.

10
(No Transcript)
11
2. Integration of Research and Practice into
Curricula

• Occupational Health and Safety Management II
  ENHS 724
• Group Research Practice Projects
• Teams range in size from 4 to 8 students

12
2. Integration of Research and Practice into
Curricula

• Occupational Health and Safety Management II
  ENHS 724
• Group Research Practice Projects
• Implementing a PPE Program _at_ Silver Sutures
• Idealized Redesign of ABC Health Services
• Idealized Redesign of a Preactive OHS Mgnt.
  System
• Integrating the Systems Thinking Approach via
  Standards-Based Management _at_ Multidiscipline
  Laboratories
• Aquarians to Antiquarians Knowledge Mngt. In
  the Changing ENHS Workforce

13
3. Examination of Environmental Health
Competencies

• Core Competencies for the Effective
• Practice of Environmental Health
• Assessment Research, Data Analysis and
  Interpretation, and Evaluation
• Management Problem Solving, Economic and
  Political Issues, Organizational Knowledge and
  Behavior, Computer/Information Technology,
  Reporting, Documentation and Record Keeping, and
  Collaboration
• Communication Education, Communication,
  Conflict Resolution, and Marketing

14
3. Examination of Environmental Health
Competencies

• Occupational Health and Safety Management II
  ENHS 724
• Course is designed to provoke the use of all 14
  core competencies through the Group Project
  report (40) and presentation (20) and the stiff
  requirement (40) of class participation

15
4. Issues Surrounding the Need for Diversity

• Occupational Health and Safety Management II
  ENHS 724
• Interactive Planning
• Key Premise Interactive Planning requires that
  those who will be affected by or will affect the
  system must participate in the planning process.
  The process thrives on diversity of thought.

16
5. Innovative Techniques in Curriculum Development

• Tulane CAEPH of the Environmental Health Sciences
  Department in the SPHTM was established in 1994
  to
• Fill a national need to link university faculty
  and environmental, health and safety
  professionals in industry and government to
  promote the practice of environmental health.

17
5. Innovative Techniques in Curriculum Development

• Tulane CAEPH activities include 
• Applying the public health approach to
  environmental and occupational health
• Developing communication strategies to
  disseminate research and management information

18
5. Innovative Techniques in Curriculum Development

• Tulane CAEPH activities include (contd) 
• Developing traditional and non-traditional
  educational and training formats (including
  distance learning technologies and computer-based
  learning)
• Incorporating epidemiological and risk-based
  methods in environmental health science practice

19
Opening Thoughts

• Our Challenges
• To provide new opportunities and skills in
  environmental health courses that stimulate
  LEARNING in the context of todays realities.
• To integrate research AND practice into
  environmental health curricula.
• To incorporate the application of environmental
  health competencies into all courses so that
  students understand the challenge of delivering
  superior performance.

20
Opening Thoughts

• Our Challenges (contd)
• To present environmental health issues in a way
  that practitioners recognize the importance of
  diversity, both in thought and in the people who
  are dealing with the issue.
• To constantly seek new and innovative techniques
  in curriculum development, both in delivery and
  in currency.